Chicago

I wandered north this summer to Chicago, Illinois - a place I have never been to until now.  I fell in love with this amazing city and am especially fond of the amazing architectural treasures there (who knew?  not me, but now I do!).

A "Must-Do" for every first-time visitor to this city is to take an architecture boat tour.  The tour guides are well-versed in many facts and details.  They do enjoy telling the "world's tallest building when it was built" stories (there are several!) too.


Here are just a few of my favorite sightings in and around Chicago this summer:

 

The first image features the Wrigley building (in the center), the Tribune building (on the right - both were built in the 1920s), bridge entry points and a smattering of other buildings too (can anyone identify these for me, please?)

a detail of the Wrigley clock tower

 

one angle looking up the Tribune

 

MichaelAngelo greeted us each time we left our hotel.

 

a close-up of this great faux-art portrait/sculpture

This is the Chicago Water Tower, built in 1869. Not the only surviving building from the Great Chicago Fire (rumors saying this are all false), this is the second oldest water tower in the United States (click here for the Wikipedia listing).

 

Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor

More often called "the Bean", this public sculpture was built between 2004 and 2006. Located in Millennium Park, it is a favorite crowd pleaser.

Last but not least is Wrigley Field, the home stadium for the Chicago Cubs baseball team.  Great news:  they WON the game that we attended!

P.S.  Chicago has sandy beaches too, so don't forget the beach towels....

Running

I laughed when I saw that the Running stitch was following the Couching stitch in our year of Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge.  The term "Couch Potato" pops into my head when I see "couching".  Running is the opposite to being a couch potato - am I the only one to see the humor here?

This is my ad-lib running stitch.  I began with the pattern across the bottom - a direct copy from one of SharonB's samples.  Then I began running around on my own, slowly building upward.  The top winding path of stitches is my favorite ... I think.

The original Challenge Stitch of the Week post that features the running stitch, the 10th week, is here.  If you are thinking of joining this embroidery challenge, this is one of the easiest stitches to learn.




Take a Stitch Tuesday is an annual challenge hosted by Sharon B from her website Pin Tangle. Click here (for the beginning of the 2012 TAST Challenge).   Join in anytime for a year of fun stitching ....or follow the many participants (found in the comment section in each challenge post) to see where our Tuesday Stitchings have taken us....

OR

   

You can follow me on my blog.

Click TAST to see all of my stitch samplers.

If you enjoy embroidery, or wish to learn more about many stitches (from the history to a step-by-step how-to) be sure to peruse Sharon B's Stitch Dictionary.

Couching stitch

An update of my Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge, here is my sampler of Couching, from week #9 of a year-long challenge (the original challenge post by SharonB is here).

I intended to feature a gorgeous, unique item in this couching sampler, but when I was ready to stitch, I could find nothing....  So I improvised with a simple piece of string.  It is a white cotton string that was used once before as a 'stand-in'  when I ran out of rubber bands while tie-dyeing t-shirts (that's the backstory of  its multi-colored look).  I enjoyed the challenge of couching the string onto my fabric, letting the many twists and curls of the string dictate the ultimate curving design.




Take a Stitch Tuesday is an annual challenge hosted by Sharon B from her website Pin Tangle. Click here (for the beginning of the 2012 TAST Challenge).   Join in anytime for a year of fun stitching ....or follow the many participants (found in the comment section in each challenge post) to see where our Tuesday Stitchings have taken us....

OR

   

You can follow me on my blog.

Click TAST to see all of my stitch samplers.

If you enjoy embroidery, or wish to learn more about many stitches (from the history to a step-by-step how-to) be sure to peruse Sharon B's Stitch Dictionary.

Chain stitch

More progress is being made with my Take a Stitch Tuesday work ... This small, simple sampler is my work with the Chain stitch.

I learned the Chain stitch when I learned to embroider as a young girl, but rather than challenge myself to push this stitch further, I have whipped together a simple sampler as I drive myself to catch up with the current stitches being posted.  This one is from week #8, while they are currently stitching stitches featured in week #32 - oh my!  but no time to despair, I have embroidery to do!

For lovelier eye candy featuring the Chain stitch, click here for the original challenge post (be sure to click on some of the links in the comments section) or click here for SharonB's selection of favorite challenge pieces.



Take a Stitch Tuesday is an annual challenge hosted by Sharon B from her website Pin Tangle. Click here (for the beginning of the 2012 TAST Challenge).   Join in anytime for a year of fun stitching ....or follow the many participants (found in the comment section in each challenge post) to see where our Tuesday Stitchings have taken us....

OR

   

You can follow me on my blog.

Click TAST to see all of my stitch samplers.

If you enjoy embroidery, or wish to learn more about many stitches (including both the history of a stitch and a step-by-step how-to stitch each) look at Sharon B's Stitch Dictionary.

Detached Chain Stitch

Continuing to make progress in my "Catch-up-over-the-Summer-Break" challenge, here is the seventh featured stitch from the year-long Take a Stitch Tuesday Challenge being hosted by SharonB (click here for her Pintangle website).  This is the Detached Chain Stitch (click here for the original challenge post).

The Detached Chain Stitch reminds me of the lazy daisy stitch that I learned as a young girl (after researching a bit, I discovered this stitch is listed by both names!)  As I have made many lazy daisy's years ago, for this challenge I am creating a many-petaled flower, reminiscent of the mums worn during Homecoming Football games (yes, I am calling up high school memories!). This flower was fun to stitch - hard to stop stitching, once I began.  Hence my flower kept growing and growing.  But as I recall those football mums did run to extra-large sizes (especially for Homecoming!).




Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST), is an annual challenge hosted by Sharon B from her website Pin Tangle. Click here (for the beginning of the 2012 TAST Challenge).   Join in anytime for a year of fun stitching ....or follow the many participants (found in the comment section of any featured stitch post) to see where our Tuesday Stitchings have taken us

OR
   

You can follow me on my blog.

Click TAST to see just my stitching posts.

Half Chevron

My ongoing project this year is the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge.  Here is my sampler of the Half Chevron stitch, featured in the nineteenth week of TAST-2012.  I've jumped ahead in my effort to catch up (and so I can post a link to the Pintangle Half Chevron page).  Click here to see the original challenge post about the Half Chevron stitch.

This is another fun stitch - though it was a touch confusing to learn as it has a few different steps than the Chevron stitch (look at my Chevron sampler here).  I love the geometric-ness of this stitch and the variable ways in which it can be layered.  I experimented with layering the Half Chevron onto itself (over lapping, back-to-back, face-to-face, and to make a frame).  I had more trouble doing a rambling organic version, but I think that was due primarily to my own preference for it's simple geometric elegance.

I am one week closer to being caught up (stay tuned for more posts as I catch up with the stitches featured between weeks 6 and 19).




Take a Stitch Tuesday is an annual challenge hosted by Sharon B from her website Pin Tangle. Click here (for the beginning of the 2012 TAST Challenge).   Join in anytime for a year of fun stitching ....or follow the many participants (found in the comment section in each challenge post) to see where our Tuesday Stitchings have taken us....

OR

   

You can follow me on my blog.

Click TAST to see all of my stitch samplers.

If you enjoy embroidery, or wish to learn more about many stitches (from the history to a step-by-step how-to) be sure to look at Sharon B's Stitch Dictionary.

on the road...

You can find inspiration for quilts in many unexpected places ....

such as the rear view of the truck above.  I wonder if this driver is aware of the interesting pattern created by the truck's load ... what do you think?

          Two color ways,

                    two different stripe patterns,

                              endless possibilities!

May you also be inspired by sightings made during your summer wanderings!